PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
The Great Texts of the Bible — Volume 15
James Hastings · 196,620 words · 202 reading sections
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ilafft itttmli MfflmlMmmm .H3b V. lb CrfV \ THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE EDITED BY THE REV. JAMES HASTINGS, D.D. EDITOR OF "THE EXPOSITORY TIMES" "THE DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE' "THE DICTIONARY OF CHRIST AND THE GOSPELS" AND "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION AND ETHICS " I CORINTHIANS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'…
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4 POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD burden — told of their blind quest after God, and God's ceaseless quest after them — they listened till he came to speak of resur- rection and judgment. And then, offended rather than amused, they broke in and said. " We will hear thee again of this matter." And so he had to forsake cultured …
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1. Signs were suggested to the Jewish mind whenever that people thought of the past history of their nation. Almost every page of their sacred books spoke of signs either past or to come. Their faith had signs for its surest proof. Their greatest men had exhibited most startling signs. Those epochs to which they looked…
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And not for signs in heaven above Or earth below they look, Who know with John His smile of love, With Peter His rebuke. In joy of inward peace, or sense Of sorrow over sin, He is His own best evidence, His witness is within.3 ii. Greeks. " Greeks seek after wisdom." The wisdom of which St. Paul speaks appears …
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1 F. W. Robertson. i CORINTHIANS i. 22-24 n of love called reforms, philanthropies, social bounties and bene- factions, even as the ocean pulsates its life-giving tides into every bay and creek and river. The springs of civilization are not in the mind. For the individual and the State "out of the heart are the issue…
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And His the sea, And His the peace, O'er all and me. Once from His boat He taught the curious throng, Then bade me let down nets into the sea; I murmured, but obeyed, nor was it long, Before the catch amazed and humbled me. His was the boat, And His the skill, And His the catch, And His my will.1 II. The Message. …
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U " Eeason cries, ' if God were good, He could not look upon the sin and misery of man and live; His heart would break.' The Church points to the Crucifixion and says, ' God's heart did 1 0. Siiy§stwr Home, Relationships of Life, 139. 16 POWER AND WISDOM OF GOD break.' Eeason cries, ' Born and reared in sin and pain…
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2. To the Greek-speaking heathens the doctrine was foolish- ness. The Greeks had been trained to speculation. Everything in their esteem ought to assume the shape of a theory, or a system, or a well-arranged argument, and ought to invite them with subtlety of discussion. The Apostle reduced them to what was in their ey…
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i CORINTHIANS i. 22-24 21 for me." Then, suddenly, as he himself records, the Holy Spirit influenced his soul, and " with tears that flowed and would not cease," he bowed and yielded himself unreservedly to the world's Eedeemer, as his Saviour and his God.1 4. Christ the Power of God. — The power of God is the force …
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(2) Christ crucified is to the Christian the wisdom of God because the Cross explains (so far as they can be explained in this world) the dark mysteries of life and death, and because it is the practical guide to truth and happiness. All the wisdom man needs to take him safely through the perils and perplexities of lif…
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28 THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE with all your heart and soul, and some souls will be surely kindled by your flame.1 2. Not improbably this determination of St. Paul's represents a temptation conquered, a soul-conflict won. To such a one as he, it would be a trial of spirit to contemplate service in such a city as Cori…
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1. St. Paul disdained systems of philosophy or the teaching of morality merely. The Gospel has been presented as a philosophy. The development of the Church, the innumerable attacks of scepticism, the rise of problems within Christianity itself have rendered imperative the presentation of the Christian system as a well…
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5. St. Paul was careful to efface self. He did not mar his message by any reference to himself. His eye was fixed on Christ. His desire was to exalt Christ. His zeal expended itself in proclaiming Christ the Saviour of sinners. There were no side glances at his own prospects, his own reputation, his own success. He was…
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T[ A company of young men were once met at supper in the old days of Athens, and Socrates, the great teacher of morality, was present. The conversation turned on their guest. " Socrates," said Alcibiades, " is like the figure of the Wood-god which you see in the workshops of sculptors : if you open it, you shall find i…
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1 Dora Greenwell. 38 THE SUM OF SAVING KNOWLEDGE If In a letter to a friend, Elinslie describes his experience among the children in an Edinburgh east-end Sabbath School : " When I was ending I spoke of how Jesus deserved to be loved, and that they should ask to be made to love Him. One little girlie whispered, ' I w…
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ing for sin can be so deep as that which is endured for the bad by the good who love them and do not partake of their guilt.1 (3) In the Cross of Christ we realize the meaning of_stn. Before that, the world treated sin lightly ; after that it could not. The world will always treat sin lightly until it understands the …
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2. To know Christ crucified is to know how to live and how to die. (1) St. Paul wanted to find a power that should be adequate to cope with men's dispositions and reach down to the very centre of feeling, and that should take hold of men's wills. And he found that power in Christ. They who long after better things fin…
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48 THINGS PREPARED FOR LOVE Christian believers, to St. Paul and his disciples, they were brought home. And it was so, not because their eyes or ears were keener than those of the Lord's executioners, or because their hearts were more imaginative or more sympathetic, but because the Holy Ghost had unveiled to them thi…
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2. " Eye saw not." When He came into this world, who was the Truth and the Life, in the body which God had prepared for Him, He came not in the glory of form : He was a root out of a dry ground : He had no form nor comeliness ; when they saw Him, there was no beauty that they should desire Him. The eye did not behold, …
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I have a little kinsman Whose earthly summers are but three, And yet a voyager is he Greater than Drake or Frobisher, Than all their peers together! He is a brave discoverer, And, far beyond the tether Of them who seek the frozen pole, Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll. Ay, he has travelled whither A…
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I know 'tis but a loom of land, Yet is it land, and so I will rejoice, I know I cannot hear His voice Upon the shore, nor see Him stand; Yet is it land, ho ! land. The land ! the land ! the lovely land ! "Far off" dost say? Far off — Ah, blessed home! Farewell ! Farewell ! thou salt sea-foam ! Ah, keel upon the silver…
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And faint the lily on its stem. And faint the perfect violet, Compared with them. 1 Captain Basil Hall. 58 THINGS PREPARED FOR LOVE I heard the songs of Paradise: Each bird sat singing in his place; A tender song so full of grace It soared like incense to the skies. Each bird sat singing to his mate Soft cooing …
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Between Thee and ourselves — nay even, again, Below us, to the extreme of the minute, Appreciable by how many and what diverse Modes of the life Thou madest be! (why live Except for love, — how love unless they know V Each of them, only filling to the edge, Insect or angel, his just length and breadth, Due facet…
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For the heart only dwells, truly dwells, with its treasure, And the languor of love captive hearts can unfetter; And they who love God cannot love Him by measure, For their love is but hunger to love Him still better. For the lack of desire is the ill of all ills, Many thousands through it the dark pathway have trod…
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Macgilvray (W.), The Ministry of the Word, 83. Maclaren (A.), Expositions : 1 and 2 Corinthians, 30. Menzies (G.), Pictorial Sermons in Industries, 48, 110. Peabody (F. G.), Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 140. Percival (J.), Sermons at Rugby, 189. „ Some Helps for School Life, 216. Selby (T. G.), The Lesson …
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i CORINTHIANS in. 9 71 and there about the edifice, but Eobert the builder — or at least the Master of building, cut his on no stone of it.1 We are Fellow-workers with One Another. The men who had ministered at Corinth, and around whose names factions were forming, differed in their gifts. St. Paul was the wisest ma…
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Secrets of beauty shaping in the mind. Yet he who takes the lower room, and tries To make his cattle-trough with honest heart, And could not frame the god with gleaming eyes. As nobly plays the more ignoble part. And maybe, as the higher light breaks in And shows the meaner task he has to do, He is the greater that…
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II. We are Fellow- workers for God. 1. Every Christian man and woman is invested with the power, and is therefore burdened with the honourable obligation to work for God. Man's communion with his Maker is not only a fellowship of worship but also a fellowship of service. ][ What were Buskin's methods in his other an…
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(3) In his own training and saving, in the work of developing personal faculty and character, man is a worker with God. Man's own will and effort constitute one of the factors in his progress. You remember the little child's quaint answer to the question, " Who made you ? " Said she, " God made me so long, and I growed…
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" God's fellow-workers ! " What a title ! How august the dignity ! What distinction it confers upon us ! The conjunction is almost incredible. God the eternal, infinite. The omniscient and omnipotent! Man, crushed before the moth, chilled and smitten by the November fog! And yet these two terms, significant of frailty …
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Thy kingdom should delay to come ? 2. As we are fellow-workers with God let us work in harmony with God and by God's method. (1) It behoves us to work in harmony with Him. Co-opera- tion with God is a question of knowing, of being conscious of it. It is impossible to divorce ourselves from God. In spite of us He will…
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Christ, by Thine own darkened hour Live within my heart and brain! Let my hands not slip the rein. Ah, how long ago it is Since a comrade rode with me ! Now a moment let me see 1 Alice Meyuell. i CORINTHIANS in. 9 85 Thyself, lonely in the dark, Perfect, without wound or mark.1 4. The fact that the work is God's …
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TJ It is said that the engineer who planned the Brooklyn bridge — one of the most colossal triumphs of scientific skill in the world — was a bed-ridden invalid ; and that with the help of a telescope he watched the bridge grow into shape day by day from his couch of paralysis and pain. He triumphed because the great th…
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2. The original application of these words is distinctly to Christian teachers. The whole section starts from a rebuke of the party spirit in the Corinthian Church which led them to swear by Paul or Peter or Apollos, and to despise all teachers but their own favourite. The Apostle reminds these jangling partisans that …
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2. The Foundation is Jesus Christ. — " Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." What does the Apostle mean by " Jesus Christ " ? The one thing fundamental, according to the teaching of St. Paul, and according to the teaching of Jesus Himself, is faith in Jesus as the Divine Bedee…
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TI Mr. Gladstone has eloquently sketched in a few words the power of the Christian church: "Christianity both produced a type of character wholly new to the Roman world and it funda- mentally altered the laws and institutions, the tone, temper, and tradition of that world. For example, it changed profoundly the 1 ,T. …
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i CORINTHIANS m. 11-13 99 tion and reverence to the great Father who made and loves us all, and requires us to love, pity, and help one another, because of this our common origin and family relation. Eeligion also requires us to be sober or temperate — regulating the appetites of our bodies and the emotions and affect…
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I feel the need of works of this kind, and I shall begin them again.1 (3) It is Jesus Christ Himself, and not His teaching or His work apart from His Person. His work, indeed, can be appreci- ated only in the light of His Person ; His death is at best heroic self-devotion (if it be so much as that) unless His Person i…
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2. What is bad teaching ? (1) A man may interpret Scripture, and yet not bring Christ out of it. He may delight himself in the study; he may be skilful in comparing Scripture with Scripture ; he may perceive with a marvellous insight the doctrinal contrasts and harmonies which fill the Bible ; he may be wise in combin…
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1 Robert Lee. * A. Maclaren. 106 THE TEACHER'S GREAT TEXT III. The Fire. 1. The flame plays round both the buildings. What fire is it ? The text answers the question for us — " the day shall declare it." The Apostle does not think that he needs to say what day. His readers know well enough what day he means. To him…
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If The sense of power which comes from self-development can only be fruitful for good if it be directed by the profound sense of responsibility, which the perpetual consciousness of life as lived in God's sight alone can give.1 (3) But the Greeks had a stern proverb to the effect that a position of leadership shows wh…
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Yet Possessing all Things. All things are yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ; and ye are Christ's ; and Christ is God's. — I Cor. iii. 21-23. 1. The Corinthian Christians seem to have carried into the Church some of the w…
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n6 YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS great manufactory, and has noted five or six great articles that one shelf contains, but, as he sees the vast accumulation of goods before him, gives up in despair in the effort to complete his work — St. Paul returns to the original sentence with which he began : " All things are yours." …
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n8 YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS give it me to-morrow. 1 trust myself to His love. All is mine; if I am His." 1 U A distinguished American politician in a heated campaign is said to have telegraphed to his friends : " Claim everything." That, in a much profounder sense, is precisely the summons which Christianity makes o…
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3. Not only are all Christian teachers ours to serve us after their own kind, but the whole world of men is ours to do the same. If there is a man anywhere with a thought in his mind worth having, whether he be a historian, or a poet, or a romancer ; if there is a man anywhere who has a practical idea to communicate, …
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1 F. B. Meyer. i CORINTHIANS in. 21-23 123 it, stare and shout round it, crowd after it up and down the streets ; build palaces for it, feast with it at their tables' heads all the night long ; your soul shall stay enough within it to know what they do, and feel the weight of the golden dress on its shoulders, and th…
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3. He owns the world who uses it as the arena, or wrestling 1 R. L. Stevenson, Ordered Soutk. z & Harford i CORINTHIANS in. 21-23 125 ground, on which, by labour, he may gain strength, and in which he may do service. Antagonism helps to develop muscle, and the best use of the outward frame of things is that we shall…
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(2) Life in its pleasures is ours ; there is no bright or helpful pleasure that is not ours. There is no place on earth which a Christian man cannot transform and transfigure to be the very gateway of heaven. All mirth is ours, all laughter is ours, all amusements are ours. Amusement in our hands will turn to spiritual…
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2. "Death is yours." We had forgotten that; or we had not realized it. We had thought that we belonged to death, not death to us. We knew that we had some feeble hold upon life, but death was not thought to be a possession, desirable or undesirable. We had not added that to the catalogue of our wealth. We had never rec…
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1 Louise Chandler Moulton. i32 YET POSSESSING ALL THINGS sobbing grief and heart-broken prayers, but the chant of victory, for a faithful soul is coming to its own. All the pomp and circum- stance of heaven centre there. The face of the pilgrim has lost its death pallor and the eyes shine with the light of expectant …
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TJ We can be only in the present, but not in the present without a past, nor in the present without a future. We need a present stretching from an eternal past to an eternal future. In Jehovah alone is such a past, present, and future found (Ps. xc. 1, 2). Jehovah hath created the heavens and the earth. We are here, an…
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1. It is because we are not our own, but Christ's, that all things are ours. How should we, poor creatures of yesterday, have all things if it were not for our connection with Christ? Has not God given all things to Christ ? As the Word has it, " The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand." And …
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Perceive the King of Kings My God and portion; to see His treasures Made all mine own, myself the end Of His great labours! 'Tis the life of pleasures To see myself His friend ! Who all things finds convey'd to Him alone, Must needs adore the Holy One.1 1 Thomas Tralierne. Our Three Judges. T4« LITERATURE Arnol…
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i CORINTHIANS iv. 3, 4 145 practical the learned. Nothing escapes, nothing daunts criticism, that is, the passing of judgment about which the judges do not doubt. Judgment means the pronouncing on what a thing really is, and the application to it of a rule, and standard, and law, which we assume to be beyond dispute. …
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In a high sense, and to most men, it is a great and momentous thing to be "judged of man's judgement." Very few of us are aware of the reinforcements which our virtue receives from the pressure of our neighbour's opinion, and the persistent impact of the moral sense that is diffused in the social atmosphere in which we…
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^[ The mischief which arises from habitual anxiety about the good opinion of men is more than can be told. It is speaking strongly, but truly, to say that it makes the whole of our life unchristian; that it dethrones our Maker from His lawful authority, and sets up an idol in His place; that it makes us heathens as com…
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II. Oue Judgment of Oueselves. We pass from the judgment of others to our own. " I judge not mine own self." 1. The Apostle is not to be taken here as contradicting what he says in other places. In one of these same letters to the Corinthians he says, " If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." So he do…
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"Where have you been, my brother? For I missed you from the street?" " I have been away for a night and a day At the great God's judgment-seat." "And what did you find, my brother, When your judging there was done?" "Weeds in my garden, dust in my doors, And my roses dead in the sun : 1 J. B. Liglitfoot. * Pascal, …
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1 Ruskin, in E. T. Cook's Life of Buskin, i. 490. a Whittier, "The Eternal Goodness." 156 OUR THREE JUDGES I do not go to men in general for their approval as the one confidence upon which I shall lean ; I do not come to my own bouI, to my own sense of integrity and fidelity, as the one thing that is to support me; I…
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U I have read somewhere of a young musician listening to the first rendering of his first great composition. He stood up above the orchestra, and as he watched how the music which was the child of his own soul stirred and swayed the hearts of the listening multitude, a strange new emotion swept over his own heart : and…
991 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical edition (1910); OCR text from Internet Archive. OCR may contain scanning/transcription errors. Verify quotations against page images when precision matters.
Project Gutenberg source record →
Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.